November 8th, 2006
Jerry is absolutely right. It terrifies me. I was gonna have some cereal today and for some reason or another it's been a while since I had milk. I still had a carton in there, pretty full. But when I saw the date on it, it was two days past the expiration date. I actually glanced at the container, saw the date, put it back in the fridge, went back to my room to check the date on the computer and decided "no way". I've seen bad milk in the past, it curdles, awful stuff. For added drama, the brand I usually get was actually sold out, so this carton was another brand I hadn't tried before. It tasted remarkably..... alike. But that doesn't mean I was going to take a chance on it past the date. I poured it out into the sink, it actually looked perfectly fine. But two days is way past the accepted standard, even when I have milk on the day I'm sort of thinking "did they mean noon or 8pm?", it already makes me uneasy.
I may be liberal on some things, but on milk past the date I'm definitely conservative.
I'm right with you there - actually I pretty much stick to the "best before" with absolutely everything. And milk that's 2 days past its date? I wouldn't even open it up to pour down the sink, for fear of letting out the smell. And the deadly vapours.
Well, it wasn't a question of opening it, it was open. But I'll tell you something else. A few years back I was living in the student village back in Norway, in one of those student dorms. There were four us sharing a unit, each one with a separate room. Well, my neighbor was a quirky fella, one time he had about three cartons of milk in the fridge that we shared, one of them from about 2 months back. The container was opened, mostly consumed, and then abandoned. It was way overdue and just sitting in the fridge for months. I didn't even notice it, I wasn't in the habit of checking on his food. Eventually he got rid of it, but it didn't smell, which was surprising. Not that I opened it and sniffed, but from reaching for my stuff two shelves up, I didn't smell anything.
I'm the same way... another thing that I'm weird about is how long the milk stays out of the fridge. It drives me nuts to see the carton of milk sitting on the counter waiting to be used or put away. My policy is that (unless I really can't help it), the milk never gets set down anywhere but in the fridge: take out, pour, put back. It must stay cold. I'm guessing it's caused by the few times as a kid I put a spoonful of lucky charms with sour milk in my mouth, that taste hangs around all day.
Oh absolutely! If you leave the milk out for more than 10 minutes, you can drink it yourself, I'm not going to touch it.
Having grown up in a place where I could see the milk being born and then undergo all the phases before it actually reaches the supermarket. Let me just say I think you can spare an extra two days on the process.
This isn't about facts, it's about attitude and perception. If I feel my milk is safe until it expires, I'm happy with that. I don't want the red pill :P